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chap. XL] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 257 night were interrupted by the perpetual dread of the justice of an assassin. His abilities, perhaps his vices, recommended him to the lasting friendship of Justinian ; the emperor yielded with reluctance to the fury of the people ; his victory was displayed by the immediate restoration of their enemy ; and they felt above ten years, under his oppressive administration, that he was stimulated by revenge rather than instructed by misfortune. Their murmurs served only to fortify the resolution of Justinian ; but the praefect in the insolence of favour provoked the resent- ment of Theodora, disdained a power before which every knee was bent, and attempted to sow the seeds of discord between the emperor and his beloved consort. Even Theodora herself was constrained to dissemble, to wait a favourable moment, and by an artful conspiracy to render John of Cappadocia the accomplice of his own destruction. At a time when Belisarius, unless he had been a hero, must have shewn himself a rebel, his wife Antonina, who enjoyed the secret confidence of the empress, communicated his feigned discontent to Euphemias, the daughter of the Praefect ; the credulous virgin imparted to her father the dangerous project ; and John, who might have known the value of oaths and promises, was tempted to accept a nocturnal, and almost treasonable, interview with the wife of Belisarius. An ambuscade of guards and eunuchs had been posted by the command of Theodora ; they rushed with drawn swords to seize or to punish the guilty minister ; he was saved by the fidelity of his attendants ; but, instead of appealing to a gracious sovereign who had privately warned him of his danger, he pusillanimously fled to the sanctuary of the church. The favourite of Justinian was sacrificed to conjugal tenderness or domestic tranquillit}^ ; the conversion of a praefect into a priest extinguished his ambitious hopes ; but the friendship of the em- peror alleviated his disgrace, and he retained in the mild exile of Cyzicus an ample portion of his riches. Such imperfect revenge could not satisfy the unrelenting hatred of Theodora ; the mur- der of his old enemy, the bishop of Cyzicus, afforded a decent pretence ; and John of Cappadocia, whose actions had deserved a thousand deaths, was at last condemned for a crime of which he was innocent. A great minister, who had been invested with the honours of consul and patrician, was ignominiously scourged like the vilest of malefactors ; a tattered cloak was the sole VOL. iv. — 17